BIFF2016 : Busan International Film Festival - Korean Today

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Jihyun attends an interview in Seoul before taking a train back to his hometown of Chuncheon. On the way he sits next to a middle-aged couple. The film soon separates into two stories, one following Jihyun and the other following the couple.
Jihyun, dreaming of getting a job in Seoul, falls into despair after failing his interview. Drowning his sorrows with alcohol, he narrowly escapes a dangerous situation thanks to the help of a friend. Together they head aimlessly to Cheongpyeongsa Temple, but he misses the last ride back home and decides to stay the night. The middle-aged couple also head towards Cheongpyeongsa Temple. They open up to each other by recalling memories of their first loves. The night passes like a dream and they get back on the train to Seoul.
Autumn, Autumn avoids a stereotypical dramatic structure by contemplating Chuncheon itself and focusing on the time that the protagonists share there. Director KIM Daehwan, known for his 2014 New Currents award-winning film End of Winter, produced the film.

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Doil is about to get out of the army. Waiting for him are Soonyoung, a woman he’s promised to marry, and his newborn son. On furlough, Doil finds out that he is not the biological father, and shortly after, Soonyoung disappears. Doil does everything he can to find her, but is unable to discover her whereabouts. Nothing seems to be working out according to his plan of settling down and getting a stable job. And he’s clueless as to what to do with the baby left to him. Perhaps life in the army, where all he has to do is follow orders, would actually suit him better. Can Doil overcome the struggles that lie ahead? Growing up isn’t something that only teenagers must do.

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Ordinary housewife Inyeong meets carpenter Huisu by chance in a café and for fun they decide to become coffee mates: friends who only meet in cafés and nowhere else. Although they don’t make calls or send texts, they can talk to each other about anything while sitting in a café. They share everything, from their daily routines to their deepest secrets, which have never been shared with anyone before. The coffee mates thing started out as a kind of joke but in the end, it shatters the two people’s entire lives, leaving them to face an awful truth they had never been aware of.
Movies tackling the subjects of amorous passion and infidelity most often focus on the sexual desires therein; an accidental encounter leads to sexual indulgence in each other, typically resulting in a ruined relationship, one way or another. Coffee Mate overturns this convention, as it is the mental rapport and not the physical union of the sexes that makes their regular married lives impossible to maintain.

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Korean society is extremely competitive, and sometimes you have to get dirt on your hands in order to survive. Of course, not all succeed after doing so. This is the case of the family in Come, Together. Middle-aged Bumgoo, his family’s breadwinner, is one day fired without notice. His wife, Miyoung, sells credit cards and struggles to become the top salesperson in her company. Hana, their daughter, nervously awaits the results of her university entrance exam.
While wallowing in misery at home, Bumgoo visits his neighbor to complain about noise emanating from their home. There, he encounters a most unexpected situation, which turns his normal day into something positively peculiar. Miyoung goes to extraordinary lengths to climb to the top but this only worsens her situation. And Hana, ashamed, lies about passing her exam. Can this family survive the harsh competitiveness of society? Come, Together takes a pointed look at Korea. Everybody tries their best, but doing so doesn’t always improve their lives. Sometimes the harder you try, the worse things can get and the fainter hope becomes.

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Jinil and Gayeong are teenage runaways who live like a family with other runaway children. Sometimes they do some delivery work, sometimes they steal things to make their living. When they run out of money, they make Gayeong lure a middle-aged man to a motel. She seduces him as if she were selling her body, but she fails to take any money from him, as he takes her hostage and demands Jinil brings him money. It turns out that he is a crooked Karaoke bar owner who forces runaway girls like Gayeong to work for him. Can Jinil rescue her?
DERAILED (a.k.a. NO WAY TO GO) describes the world as a jungle where only the strong survive. Fighting between the runaway teenagers is not uncommon, neither is the exploitation of these youngsters by adults, but there are teenagers conning the grown-ups too. A tyrannical man in the outside world can be an affectionate father to his daughter, but in a place where the law and system don’t function at all, two men—one a grown-up, the other just a boy—battle for survival.

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Brother Jangwoo and his younger sister Eunji have no parents. Eunji goes missing and after three days her body is found; Jangwoo dedicates himself to searching for the murderer, who left no witnesses, no clues and basically no evidence at all. During an exorcism performed to comfort his late sister’s soul, Jangwoo becomes suspicious of a man there when the brass bowl used for the ceremony rolls over and points at him; the man runs away but Jangwoo manages to track him down. Living alone in the town, Sieun has the power to foresee people’s deaths. As she foresaw Eunji’s death but ignored it, she is feeling guilty, so now she approaches Jangwoo and forecasts another death. He follows the same man to the place in her prediction and he thinks he might be the town pharmacist, who is known to be a nice person.
Fatal Intuition is a thriller blending in a good number of classic horror genre elements. Together with The Priests, this latest film from director Yun Junhyeong is another noteworthy example of the Korean thriller and horror genre.

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After watching the play The Quartet, Heon, Eun, Jun, and Kyeong decide to join an acting workshop. The one month-long class is led by Mirae, an actress. Heon, as the youngest employee of a theater company, is assigned only chores. Eun spends tedious hours tidying up in a secondhand bookstore. Jun spends most of his time acting in short films, and Kyeong is a photographer who aspires to be an actor. Mirae thoughtfully considers each of their motivations for acting, the deep emotions they might be hiding, and the self-image they are trying to project, believing that their acting is a mirror of their inner self. As part of a character-building session, Mirae shows them the diary of an anonymous person. She instructs each of them to read the diary, imagine the person writing it, and then do their best to act out that person. How different will each of their interpretations be?
Acting is not just about mere technique. It’s about exposing oneself, fighting against one’s own fears, and facing one’s true self. By examining these ideas, Hyeon’s Quartet delves deeper into the mystifying world of acting.

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Who actually controls Korean society? Inside Men presents four categories of people: politicians, “chaebol”, journalists, and gangsters. A hopeful presidential candidate is sponsored by a chaebol while the editor-in-chief of a famous newspaper sets him up to win the election. Political hoodlum Ahn Sanggu makes his money doing all sorts of dirty work for them, but he gets caught while attempting to make a dodgy deal using their slush fund. Prosecutor Woo Janghun can’t get promoted because he has no sponsor and his career falls apart because of the investigation into the slush fund. He attempts to make a comeback by helping dejected Ahn Sanggu. Will their plans for revenge succeed?

Inside Men welcomed over 70 million cinema admissions when released in November 2015, and thanks to this box office success, an extended version with another 50 minutes was also released. As similar events occurred in reality, Inside Men has hit the headlines a number of times. The dramatic twist that concludes their revenge includes some serious social criticism and offers a truly pleasing climactic denouement.

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Meehee meets a high school girl. She follows the girl and ends up at the house of Cho Sungsook. Although it’s the first time they’ve met, Meehee insists that they were once actually close friends. Sungsook accepts Meehee’s claim and treats her like a friend. Sungsook talks to the man she lives with about Meehee. The man visits Meehee and the two end up having sex. With Sungsook unaware of their relationship, the man and Meehee grow closer. And when the man is not around, Sungsook and Meehee grow closer together.

Jamsil is not a film that can be rationally explained easily. Someone pretends to be the best friend of a person they’ve never met and a man and a woman, who despite meeting for the first time, act like long-lost lovers. Has Meehee traveled through time from Sungsook’s past? The characters intertwine within an oscillating past and present. Instead of one clear interpretation, the film proposes different possibilities and makes the viewer anticipate what might come next. It’s an interesting film woven with several uncanny strings that connect the characters.

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Sohyun, a runaway, is left alone after her close friend Jungho disappears. By accident, she gets to know a transgender woman named Jane. She joins Jane and her close-knit community of runaways, who are as comforting and loving as a real family. Sohyun feels happy and at peace. But her happiness does not last long. There is something wrong with Jane’s health.

Jane is a film that parallels two stories about Sohyun. One seems to be the reality, the other an imagination, yet it’s vague which is which. Perhaps both are realities or imaginations. In any case, the two stories reveal the lives of runaway teens. Based on hierarchy, the runaway family functions like a patriarchal one, a reality Sohyun knows all too well. However, as soon as Jane steps in as the patriarch, the lives of the teens change. A familiar face from Reply 1988, Lee Min-ji plays the lead character and director/actor Koo Kyohwan stars as Jane.

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Songjun is an unknown actor who often has to borrow money from his brother to get by. On one of his grim days, Songjun is cast as the lead in a play about homosexuality. The play is successful and Songjun is lauded for his performance. By taking the role and making efforts to better understand the gay community, Songjun believes he has been able to overcome his prejudices. But after discovering his brother’s secret, he realizes he is still unable to accept homosexual love.

Lost to Shame follows Songjun as he rises from a nameless actor to stardom, all along thinking that he’s open-minded. However, he fails to live up to the image he has of himself and his true character reveals itself. This film is the directorial debut of Nam Yeon-woo, who has been hailed for his acting work in a number of independent films, including Fatal. He plays the lead in this work.

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A female university student walks from the subway station to her tutoring job. There’s a camera that follows her, continuing to film her in one single take. When she arrives at the apartment, however, nobody is home. She calls the mother of the student to complain but the mother insists that she had said the family would be on vacation. After walking all the way to the apartment and sweating under the hot summer sun, the student is speechless. To fill the time before her next part-time job, she takes a walk in a nearby park. But something horrible is waiting for her there. In the film’s second story, the camera follows a young man who seems to have become involved in a bad situation. What is his story?
Picture of Hell was shot in real time and without any cuts except for the title shot that divides the two stories. Such long takes create a tension derived from the character’s emotions and the situations they encounter—an interesting experiment about the unfoldment of time.

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A Korean couple travel across the desert to an island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which is not only a famous tourist attraction, but the location they have chosen for their double suicide. The man used to be a baseball player, but when arm surgery leaves him unable to play, he becomes firmly addicted to gambling and alcohol, so this is why he decides to end his life. The woman ends up being there to see what her late boyfriend wanted to see, so the process of this hopeless couple opening their hearts ensues.
During the trip to the salt lake, she says she wants to wear a wedding dress and have a meal in a nice restaurant, even though she won’t be able to get married, and so they deviate from the route and head for Las Vegas. He is lured into gambling again by the bright lights of the city. Road to Utah star Lee Jinwook, featured in the TV drama, Nine: Nine Time Travels and Ryu Hyeyeong appeared in the TV drama Reply 1988.

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Hyunho and Junghee are in their 20s and have been married for two years. Dreaming of becoming an actor, Hyunho quits his job and begins going to acting auditions. Junghee can’t find a job because of the fact that she’s married.
On a cold winter day, the contract for their unheated single-room flat expires and the two start looking for a new home. They come across a couple of similar age living in a spacious, luxurious house. They fall into despair. Pushed by a sheer desire to earn money, Hyunho goes back to work but keeps it a secret from Junghee, who still supports his dream.
Second Winter is the story of a young couple who give up on their dreams after coming face-to-face with the harshness of reality. The warm living room of the wealthy couple appears as a mirror image of this reality. It is an image that leaves a strong impression and symbolizes the contrast between the rich and the poor, reality and the ideal, and the past and present. It also questions whether or not one can be happy in a world outside of one’s dreams.

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The scene is Daegu in 2003, and Haegwan’s only daughter Yuju goes missing. Haegwan scours the country for his lost daughter for 10 years with no signs or clues as to her whereabouts. When everyone advises him to give up on her, he meets “Sori”, a robot that can remember all the voices in the world. The robot crash-lands in Korea, while drifting in space as a wiretapping satellite, and Haegwan is suddenly filled with new hope that he might find his daughter using this robot.
Although it uses the concept of a wiretapping robot falling into Korea, which would be an appropriate premise for a sci-fi movie, SORI: Voice from the Heart is not a spectacular sci-fi epic. It actually centers on typically Korean family-oriented themes, such as conflict between the conservative father and his rebellious daughter, major and minor hiccups between the robot with its unexpected charm, and the failure of a father’s paternal love. “Should we be grateful for protection?” The robot’s question remains serenely resonant.

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Japanese police officer Lee Jeongchul is mobilized to mop up the Korean independent movement group—ordered to befriend them and gather information to catch the ringleader of the group. He heads to Shanghai with Kim Woojin, a member of the organization he meets in Seoul. The Japanese police send Hashimoto to be Jeongchul’s work partner but he tries to catch the group leader independently. When introduced to the leader by Woojin, Jeongchul is stirred when the leader asks: “Please work for our homeland.” So Jeongchul travels with the group as they traffic explosives from Shanghai to Seoul.
The Age of Shadows was inspired by true events; the Korean independent movement group’s attempt to transport explosives in Seoul to blow up the General Government Building, and the involvement of spies in this. Director Kim said, “It began with my attraction to spy movies.” This film exemplifies the pleasure of the genre—the sense of crisis and tension building as the characters deceive each other. Kim added, “I wanted to describe how the era put pressure on people and what they were driven to.”

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Sixty-five-year-old Soyeong sells her body to old men in the Jongro area. She is popular among the other Bacchus ladies when her reputation as a woman who is ”fatally good at sex” goes viral among the old men. She lives with her transgender landlady and a disabled man, and she takes in a suddenly orphaned boy, whose mother was arrested. She used to work as a foreigner’s whore who barely made ends meet, but she can’t ignore people in wretched conditions. She is asked to kill one of her customers (himself), and suffering a stroke after being torn between guilt and sympathy, she genuinely kills him. She turns from a woman who is fatally good at it into a woman who killed. In the lead role, Yoon Yeojeong portrays the old lady’s dignity in maintaining a noble spirit despite her occupation. The Bacchus Lady is a film about someone who could be a role model for her sympathy for others, and her bravery against prejudice, although she does less than dignified work for a living.

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In Korea during the Japanese colonial period, heiress Hideko loses her parents when she is young and lives with her uncle, a con man, as her guardian. He and maid Sukhee start living with her in her mansion hoping to snatch her inheritance. Sukhee is attracted by Hideko’s good looks and Hideko opens herself up to her. Among the deception, they make their best decision.
Based on the British novel, Fingersmith, The Handmaiden has the plot of a heist film. Sukhee is the main focus of the first act, while the second act has Hideko in the central spot, so this film can be viewed differently, depending on who is followed. Ocean’s Eleven and The Big Swindle exploit the charm of twists in this kind of structure. The Handmaiden not only offers the pleasure of a perfect crime and revenge story, but it overturns the sexual fantasies of both men and women: men getting turned on by listening to passages from erotic novels read by women, and men becoming the targets of derision for considering a woman an easily-conquered object.

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Princess Deokhye was the last princess of the Joseon Dynasty. Daughter of Emperor Gojong, she was sent to Japan to marry a Japanese Count, and was hospitalized due to schizophrenia. Even after liberation she couldn’t return to Korea, as the Lee Seung-man government feared a revival of the dynasty. She returned eventually, in 1962, and died in 1989.

The Last Princess is based on the life of a real person and following much debate over historical distortion, this film was leavened with significant cinematic creativity. In the movie, Princess Deokhye is shown to be a person with a strong belief in the independence of Korea. All the main characters—Kim Janghan, Emperor Gojong, Prince Imperial Yeong, Lee Wu and Princess Deokhye—are portrayed as quite nationalistic, which would seem to be the result of such cinematic creativity, as this deviates somewhat from the known facts. Hence the film becomes more of a melodrama appealing to people’s nationalistic feelings. So Princess Deokhye stands to evoke a tear or two as a symbol of something we lost long ago.

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Kim Jeongho Gosanja, born during the Joseon Dynasty in the 19th century, made Daedongyeojido, the most accurate map of Korea of the time. He decided to make a precise map after his father had frozen to death on a mountain because of inadequate cartography. He is considered “the man who’s crazy about maps” by the village people because, having left his daughter alone, he concentrated only on making this map for three-and-a half years. Kim Jeongho engraved the map on woodblocks for all to use, and also to prevent the exclusive possession of the map. Heungseon Daewongun, the King’s father, covets the map and so the Kim family, the sworn political enemy of Heungseon Daewongun, plot to steal the woodblocks. Can Kim Jeongho possibly defend both his beliefs and his family?
Kang Woo-suk realizes the ordeal of a man devoted to his own principles through the life of mapmaker Kim Jeongho. Like Kang Cheoljung in Public Enemy, Kim Jeongho is also confident in the face of power and violence, but he pays a heavy price for his belief.

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A North Korean fisherman drifts into Southern waters when his boat’s engine fails. The National Intelligence Service proceeds to interrogate him on suspicion of being a spy. Two NIS officers with opposing views take on the case; one officer is convinced of the fisherman’s guilt and uses brutal interrogation techniques close to torture, while the other is sympathetic and treats him humanely. The NIS officers request that he write the entire story of how he got to the South several times, leaving nothing out; the fisherman just wants to go back to the North, but the suspicion doesn’t disappear. Can the fisherman go home?
The Net is another of Kim Ki-duk’s films focusing on the topic of the North/South Korean divide, following his earlier works Wildlife Reservation Zone and The Coast Guard. In his own distinctive style, he confronts issues surrounding the manmade artificial border, the iron fences and the political partition. The Net is a heart-rending account of the reality of forcing people to choose either the North or the South

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In Seoul 2015, a girl displays strange symptoms after a hit-and-run. Having gotten into trouble with the church due to frequent, unexpected behavior, Priest Kim has his own plans for saving the girl despite opposition and suspicion from everyone around him. To proceed with his plan, he needs another priest with the right credentials, and while most seem to avoid him, seminarian and deacon Choi is given the mission to help and spy on Kim. Eventually, they have only one day to save the girl, so Priest Kim and Deacon Choi perform a life-threatening ritual. Based on the short film, 12th Assistant Deacon, which won awards at both the Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival and Jeonju International Film Festival, The Priests has been made into a feature-length film by the same director. It is also a creative adaptation of The Exorcist by William Friedkin, adapted to Korean circumstances. Rookie actress Park Sodam gives an impassioned performance as the girl, while Kim Yunseok and Kang Dongwon convincingly play the opposing characters of Priest Kim and Deacon Choi.

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Lorsque sa fille Min-Jin disparaît, Yeon-Hong est désespérée par le comportement de son mari qui convoite un siège à l'Assemblée Nationale et que l'absence de l'adolescente ne perturbe pas.

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La vie d’un village coréen est bouleversée par une série de meurtres, aussi sauvages qu’inexpliqués, qui frappe au hasard la petite communauté rurale. La présence, récente, d’un vieil étranger qui vit en ermite dans les bois attise rumeurs et superstitions. Face à l’incompétence de la police pour trouver l’assassin ou une explication sensée, certains villageois demandent l’aide d’un chaman. Pour Jong-gu aussi , un policier dont la famille est directement menacée, il est de plus en plus évident que ces crimes ont un fondement surnaturel…

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Quoi de pire, pour une petite fille de 10 ans, que de ne pas avoir d’amies? La discrète Sun est, contre son gré, la marginale de sa classe. Quel bonheur lorsque Jia, nouvelle arrivante, se prend d’amitié pour elle! Les deux fillettes passent les vacances d’été ensemble, traînant dans le quartier, se rendant visite l’une l’autre et se racontant leurs secrets. Mais lorsque l’école recommence, la réalité du quotidien met l’amitié des deux enfants à rude épreuve: alors que Jia intègre peu à peu le groupe des filles «cool», elle s’éloigne toujours plus de Sun... Le premier long métrage, émouvant, de Yoon Ga-eun donne un aperçu du monde affectif ambivalent et très complexe de deux fillettes.

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Un couple se fait face à une table de café ; Il est apparemment revenu d'Europe et elle ne se réjouit pas de cette rencontre après un si long moment. La discussion semble pouvoir s'arrêter à chaque instant mais elle est soudain touchée lorsqu'il dévoile ses sentiments enfouis.

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Kim Joon-ho, jeune homme d’une vingtaine d’année n’en peut plus de ce monde et décide de mettre fin à ces jours par pendaison lorsque toute sa famille est en voyage en Californie. Pourtant c’est au moment cruciale de son acte qu’il est stoppé net par la visite d’une charmante escort-girl, Kim Min-Ji qui avait rendez-vous avec lui. Ne se souvenant plus de rien et complètement déstabilisé par la venue de la demoiselle, son idée de suicide s’évapore et propose à cette dernière de faire connaissance, de discuter au lieu de simplement consommer.

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Le film met en scène Yong-soon, jeune fille de 18 ans, qui tombe amoureuse de son professeur de sport. Elle se demande s’il a déjà une compagne. Du coup, avec ses amis, elle essaie de trouver des indices sur la vie privée de ce professeur, en vain. Déjà quelque peu déprimée, elle doit également faire face à l’arrivée d’une nouvelle belle-mère, ramenée de Mongolie par son père.